Updated: The mathematics of Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha Elections 2014

A link posted on Twitter led me to investigate this. This is the link. I don’t think the maths is accurate, or that Wikipedia is a good source for this kind of thing, but luckily, I was able to locate good sources.

Warning: I am no election expert, nor am I all that great at maths. Verify rebut or endorse at your own risk.

The vote share in Uttar Pradesh as per http://ceouttarpradesh.nic.in/GE2014/VoterTurnout.pdf

Scroll right down to the bottom for total votes cast. I read the number 80926378 .

Now head over to the election commission website for the UP page and scroll down to the piechart for vote share with list on left, with number of votes cast. The numbers with dots in front of them expand to show full number when you hover your mouse over them, and you get the following results:

Uttar Pradesh vote share

Party

Votes%

Vote Count

BJP

42.30%

34318576

SP

22.20%

17988792

BSP

19.60%

15914019

INC

7.50%

6061236

IND

1.70%

1414863

AAAP

1.00%

821301

AD

1.00%

812325

RLD

0.90%

689409

NOTA

0.70%

592406

PECP

0.60%

500482

D

0.40%

354578

BMUP

0.20%

153821

CPI

0.20%

129471

Total

79751279

That is looking like 1175099 LESS votes recorded.

Considering that several crucial victory margins can be explained by such numbers, if my maths is right, it looks like a re-poll, right?

There are some explanations coming up, like the EC not providing vote share of “others” – probably independents, which could explain the difference. Others are saying that the difference could be the postal ballot. But going through the data per constituency disproves both.

The “others” being the difference gets disproved when you tally votes per constituency, where the number of votes each candidates gets is explicit and without room for omissions. We find that every constituency has a difference in number of votes cast and counted.

The postal ballot theory gets disproved because the votes counted don’t always exceed votes cast. A person voting by ballot can be understood. There is no explanation for votes already cast going missing – which is the difference in numbers on a state level, which goes above 11 lakh.

I will update data or all constituencies, but this initial sample is good enough to see what I mean.

Just a small addendum to your data. Adding up the percentage points in the first table gives you less than a 100%. There is something wrong, most probably spreadsheet errors.

Is it possible that some people might’ve made a mistake in voting i.e. pressing a button that doesn’t correspond to any candidate, and so on. To call the whole election rigged, as one of your commenters seems to do, is churlish at best.

My ipad ate my comment!! I doubt there was any rigging. Today’s chanakya predicted these results, and when I first checked the EC website, it showed data for only 10 seats, with BJP 6/10, which was 60%, roughly their final tally. I know very little about statistics, but if 2 random samples could predict the results, I doubt that the EVMs had any bias. Modi got about 40% votes! and there were 60% votes polled. That is 24% of the electorate. Which is more or less the number of the traditional BJP supporters, the upper caste middle classes, who’s self identify as the general category, and long believed themselves to be politically irrelevant. His great achievement was to make them come out and vote for him. And he won it free and fair. PS- I am no bhakt. I find these results scary.

I doubt that there was any rigging. Today’s Chanakya could accurately predict results. When I first checked the EC website yesterday, they had data for only 10 seats, with BJP 6/10, which was their final tally, about 60%seats. I know very little about statistics, but of 2 random samples could accurately predict results, the EVMs are unlikely to be biased. Modi has got 40% vote share. Since polling was about 60%, that is 24% of the electorate which has voted for him. That is more or less the number of the traditional BJP supporters, the upper caste middle classes, who self identify as the general category and have believed for some time that they are politically irrelevant. Modi inspired them to come out and vote en bloc for him, which is his great achievement. PS- I am no bhakt. I am scared by these results which have handed over a simple majority to a dictator. He did win this free and fair.

i refuse to believe in this day and age a party can get 73 seats in UP with such a dominating caste factor.

There was strong undercurrwnt for AAP in many seats and lokking ant some of the voting results, i really doubt thia election result itself was fair and square. the wgole election process was already bought out, whats the guarantee the counting itself was rigged to juatify the fake wave created in earliar phases.